High technology can be
a solution to improving your translation services. One example is Advocate Christ
Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL, which recently implemented a system providing
audiovisual interpreting services on demand for non-English-speaking or hearing-impaired
patients.

At Christ Medical Center,
instant interpreting services already have been available via phone and in-person
translators are on call, says Meg Adorno, manager of special services
at Christ Medical Center. This new service, however, provides interpreters immediately
and in person. Using real-time audio and video, the service links patients to
interpreters within minutes for translation in certified American Sign Language
or one of approximately 22 different spoken languages.

It is available 24 hours
per day, seven days per week. Provided by Deaf-Talk, the system includes a video
monitor, speakerphone, and flexible mini camera. The unit can be wheeled into
the patient’s room, hooked to an ISDN computer line, and, within five minutes
an interpreter appears on the screen to begin translating or signing for the
patient. Unlike a phone translator, the interpreter can see and hear everything
that the patient, doctors, and other medical staff are doing or saying in the
room. The flexible camera also can be extended over the patient’s bed so that
the patient can sign while lying down. The Deaf-Talk system already has been
installed in Christ Medical Center’s emergency department, and the medical center
may consider expanding the system’s use to additional areas of the hospital
later this year.

Other hospitals within
the Advocate Health Care system also are planning to implement Deaf-Talk in
2003. Adorno says the benefits justified the expense, which the hospital won’t
specify.

"All of our patients deserve
equal service," she says. "This new system raises the bar for what’s possible
in making the hospital experience more comfortable for hearing-impaired patients
or for those who speak little or no English."

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